Lisa Williams, a senior lecturer at the School of Psychology at the University of NSW, agrees.

"If we're pursuing goals for external controlled reasons or because we feel we ought to, or because of situational demands or even cultural norms, the research has shown that that has been linked with distress," she says.

"We're pretty bad, as it turns out, at choosing things that will lead us to experience positive emotion.

"We inculcate each other with this idea that having immense success at work and having a romantic partner, or having a very healthy, fit body will result in happiness.

"And it just simply turns out that when people end up achieving those goals, sometimes it's less good than they think it's going to be."